Numerous scenes throughout Beginners demonstrate Hal’s abandonment of pretense and his willingness to experiment with his life. Even when Hal is dying from cancer, he is not a person to be pitied he is purposeful and fully alive. He finds an out gay priest to guide him spiritually and sees a therapist for the first time in his life.īeginners abandons clear chronological progression it alternates between Hal’s enjoyment of his openly gay life, his battle with cancer and eventual death, and Oliver’s attempt to cope with the loss of his father and his relationship with his girlfriend Anna. He may not be hip to all of the contours of gay culture (Oliver has to explain that the thump, thump, thump music he is listening to is called house) but Hal is never, ever, a subject of ridicule or pity. Hal is a vibrant and alive 75 year old man, surrounded by friends and actively engaged in his community (movie club, political work). Hal Fields is not the obsessive older man clamoring for a teenager ( Death in Venice) or the cranky old queen The Browning Version. But he has lived in the shadows and his coming out releases his inner fireworks.
![older gay men movies older gay men movies](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/90/8f/6f/908f6f183ae3c1e0aa2db17962109dc9.jpg)
Hal, it is revealed, has been a faithful father and husband and a respected museum director.
OLDER GAY MEN MOVIES PROFESSIONAL
I want to do something about it.” Oliver explains that Hal changed all of his clothes, got a boyfriend and a personal trainer who was studying for his professional pyrotechnics license. I don’t want to just be theoretically gay. After his announcement, Hal continues telling his son Oliver, “I loved your mother. Christopher Plummer, as Hal, looks directly into the camera minutes into the film and plainly says, “I’m gay.” Our establishing shot of Hal is him with a homemade fireworks display. Six months later, his father announced that he was gay. His parents were married for forty-four years before his mother died. Beginners is based on writer and director Mike Mill’s own life. Hal Fields was a groundbreaking character. The film bucked every stereotype of what older gay men in motion pictures were supposed to experience, feel and look like. Christopher Plummer Winning an Academy Award for Beginners Perhaps this is what is so remarkable about Christopher Plummer’s Academy Award-winning role as Hal Fields in Beginners. Ezra Miller’s scene stealing performance in Perks of Being a Wallflower continues this trend. This trend extends into motion pictures with the exception of high profile biographical films such as Milk, gay men in films are young and usually depicted in coming-of-age or coming out stories. Gay men, like the vast majority of characters on television, are to be young and good looking. The New Normal and Partners are both examples of this phenomenon. But television writers usually succumb to cookie cutter imagery of gay men – white, in their 30’s or 40’s, upperwardly mobile with readily available disposable income. Certainly, there are more depictions of gay men in American television than ever before. One may consider this a result of both ageism and homophobia. Yet no screenwriter has been able to have this type of life experience depicted in popular culture on the screen. This successful hardworking pair ended up living quite comfortably. They both held executive corporate positions later in their lives and navigated the tricky contours of 1950’s and 1960’s career-killing homophobia. Sal was of a large Italian immigrant family of 11 Ernie was a dyed in the wool Wasp. Ernie was a Navy chaplain in World War II before the two met in a large lecture hall class at Columbia University after the war. I can’t think of one fictional television or cinematic depiction of a gay couple that stayed together that long.Įrnie and Sal had a fascinating story. There are scores of films and Hallmark television movies that show young couples falling for each and then later depict them as an elderly pair, deeply in love. As a media critic, my immediate thought was, why have I never seen this type of story before? Sixty-five year relationships are celebrated and praised in straight culture.
![older gay men movies older gay men movies](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c3/00/70/c300709b2ea0cea095edc7e93c014919.jpg)
Yes, 1947! That is a sixty-five year relationship. Ernie and his partner Sal had been together since 1947. My good friend, Jim, recently lost his uncle Ernie.